Matching Animals with their Fossils

I created this activity for our Noah's Ark theme, but it could be used with any animal-related activity. The ancient story of Noah and the historic traces of animal remains preserved in rock formations seemed to go together, so I thought I'd give the boys their first lesson in paleontology by creating fossils and seeing if they could match up the animals with their fossils.  I should point out that the animals I chose were not related to actual fossils that have been found (or at least not intended to be - apart from the dinosaurs of course!)

To make the fossils, I used the recipe for salt dough which I borrowed from this website, using only half of the ingredients recommended (as this activity didn't require such a large quantity of dough).  I pressed the animal figurines into the dough and gently pulled them away.  The animals with intricate features seemed to work particularly well (such as the octopus and the gecko).  I cut around the animal patterns and lifted the fossils onto a baking tray and put them into the oven at 100 degrees for about an hour and a half. The temperature should be high enough to dry out the dough, but low enough to prevent it from cooking.  

Once the dough felt hard, I removed the baking tray from the oven and let the fossils cool.

I set up the activity by presenting the boys with a basket of animals which included the animals with a matching fossil.  The activity required them to match up the animals with their corresponding fossil. To help the boys do this, I gave them a clump of playdough that they could use to test out the patterns that the animals made.

What we used:
Salt
Plain Flour
Animal Figurines
Knife
Playdough

Please click here to see our other Noah's Ark-related activities.